Treasured Art and Friendships

Susan Grover and Richard Thurstonopened Grover/Thurston Gallery inPioneer Square in 1990, yet the concept started earlier. Like other buddingartist representatives, the pair began byexhibiting work in their home. Someof the first art they collected wasby Terry Turrell whose art, along with that of Anne Siems, is featured through the Grover/Thurston Gallery’s May 17 closing date.

Grover/Thurston Gallery has sustained a signature aesthetic that seems to havepartly grown out of Mia Gallery (notto be mistaken with M.I.A. Gallery)which closed in 1997 and specialized in showing work by self-taught artists, a genre that is related to both folk and so-called “outsider” art. Turrell,who exhibited with Mia Gallery, is a self-taught artist – a trickygenre that rides a fine line betweenknowledge and innocence. Dip toofar on one side and the work becomes pretentious, dip on the other and thework comes across as unintentional.

Turrell’s work — created out of wire,ceramic, wood, pencil, crayon, cloth, enamel, and oil amongst other mediums– rarely slips from the self-taughtgenre’s fine tightrope. He has written that he “strives to create compassion, humility, and humor along with a serious edge.” With hints of Alexander Calder, Alden Mason, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Turrell’s depictions of cats, birds, and figures in subdued hues with shocks of bright colors, continues our region’s craft arts legacy in ways that we can be proud.

Keeping in tune with Grover Thurston Gallery’s folk art strain, Anne Siemshas been inspired by “the EuropeanMasters, Early American Folk artas well as vintage and modern photography.” Her final exhibit at the gallery entitled “Old Growth” grew from hiking and photographing in the Pacific Northwest last summer. These signature large, square paintingsdepict Siems’ semi-transparent/transitional, historic girls posing with great stumps of old growth trees – double portraits that represent past and present. Like Sunday church hats the stumps, adorned with fungus, squirrels, and flora, seem to know just how astonishing they are.

“Susan and Richard’s was a fabulous gallery to start out with in Seattle,” wrote Siems via email; “They were my hub and from them my career got going.”

Part of the reason for Grover Thurston Gallery’s success is that the owners were disciplined. “In the whole time we’ve had the gallery,” says Susan Grover,“we’ve never represented more than24 artists at one time. And we’verepresented artists that we caredabout – we liked the artist and we likedthe work. Work that we were interested in living with and collecting ourselves.”

It is no surprise that after operating atwo-person, brick-and-mortar business for twenty-four years that both Susan Grover and Richard Thurston plan on spending the next year on theirrespective travels. Yet they have enjoyed spending time with the art and artists they cared about. “There are some friendships,” says Susan Grover, “that I will treasure for the rest of my life.”

Anne Siems and Terry Turrell exhibits are featured through May 17 at theGrover/Thurston Gallery located at319 - 3rd Avenue South in Seattle, Washington with the hours of Tuesday through Saturday 11 A.M. to 5 P.M. and by appointment. For more information visit www.groverthurston.com.